Bridal Shower Food (and Lemonade Cake Recipe)

Now that I talked about the bridal shower decor, it's on to the food. (oh, did you grab your free recipe card download?)  I used some glass plates and cups to make it special.  And besides, when else can I use something like that?

For drinks it was an obvious choice - lemonade!  I used the can of frozen concentrate and cut up a bunch of strawberries to put in it for a hint of strawberry-lemonade flavor.  I also had water, with lemon slices for color (and theme!):

My cousin Kate brought the lemon bars - she makes the best ones!!  And some pretzels to add some salty flavors to the menu.

I made lemon cream puffs - I used the Pampered Chef "puff" recipe and the lemon filling from this recipe on AllRecipes.  Basically you make like a lemon curd and then mix it with homemade whip cream, so it's a lemon-flavored whip cream.  I was a little disappointed with these because they just didn't have that lemon "bite" or "zing" I was wanting.  I think if I made them again I would use the lemon curd stuff straight-up - not mix it with whipcream.  They were alright, just not wow - but they looked fabulous:

What was "wow" was the homemade lemon ice - it had that "bite" - the pucker up taste I love.  I found the recipe off of Woman's Day via The Idea Room.  It made a lot more than I had lemons for, so I put the extra in a bowl guests could get refills.  Some even put the lemon ice in their water - yum!

Oh, of course I had candy lemon drops - you see them in the picture above.
The cake was one of my favorites - lemonade cake, recipe from my friend Sara.  It is best in a 9x13 pan because when you pour the glaze on it can just sit there and drown the cake in lemony goodness.  But I wanted it to look pretty so for this event I made it in a bundt pan.  Here it is toward the end of the night:

Lemonade Cake - highly recommended, and super easy to make - go try it!

Lemonade Cake

1pkg.lemon cake mix; 1cup plus 2tsp.water

1(3oz.) pkg. instant lemon pudding mix

1-cup corn or vegetable oil;

4 eggs

1(6oz.) can of lemonade concentrate, thawed

2 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar

Combine cake mix, pudding mix, oil; water and eggs in a mixing bowl.

Mix well. Put in a greased 9x13pan and bake at 350 degrees for

25-30min. 

Combine confectioners sugar and lemonade concentrate in a

bowl; mix well. Pierce holes in hot cake and spread lemonade mixture

over warm cake. Bake for 3 min. longer.

linking to all those fun link parties including the saturday show and tell: